Published Monday | October 8, 2007

View ribbon cutting ceremony for Salem Village.

Published Monday | October 8, 2007
Apartments give needy a place to call home
BY ERIN GRACE
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

The comfy leather armchair near the bay window faces a TV cabinet showcasing family photos. The canned peaches, soon to fill a cobbler, wait in one of the kitchen cabinets.

Residents have begun moving into this complex for senior citizens at 34th and Lake Streets. The $8.5 million project was undertaken by New Community Development Corp. and Salem Baptist Church

The vacuum is in the front closet, the washer and dryer are in a hall closet, and the hulking oxygen machine hums from a bedroom corner.

It appears that Marva McCarty, a retired breakfast cereal packer who suffers from asthma, is all moved in to a two-bedroom apartment she calls a "step up toward heaven," in the $8.5 million senior citizens complex that unofficially opened last week at 34th and Lake Streets.

Salem Village at Miami Heights is a 51-unit, U-shaped, two-story building that brings another anchor to the developing 30th and Lake Streets corridor. It is named for the church that helped develop it � Salem Baptist's seven-year-old, $7.2 million sanctuary sits just across and down the street � and for the Miami Heights housing development of $200,000-plus homes just to the east.

The nonprofit New Community Development Corp. developed both Miami Heights and Salem Village. New Community owns Salem Village, and the organization is looking for other projects it can work on with Salem Baptist Church.

NP Dodge will manage the property.

Salem Village was financed by tax credits that require the one- and two-bedroom units be affordable and rented to people whose incomes are at or below 60 percent of the area median income. An apartment brochure listed the maximum income for a single tenant at $27,960 and maximum for two people at $31,920. Tenants must be 62 and older.

Salem Village at Miami Heights

There are 10 one-bedroom apartments measuring about 700 square feet and renting for $450 a month. The 41 remaining two-bedroom units have about 1,000 square feet and rent for $550 a month.

"We want to make this affordable for those who need it," said Ken Lyons, New Community executive director.

Each apartment includes new kitchen appliances and bathrooms with grab bars. Each resident gets a parking spot in an underground heated garage that has secured entrances.

The first tenants began moving in over the weekend as construction workers put on the finishing touches.

A formal ribbon-cutting is scheduled for mid-November.

By then, McCarty may have her card-playing group lined up and the cardboard boxes, filling a spacious walk-in closet, unpacked.

For now, the Kellogg's and Western Electric retiree is reveling in her new home. She loves the standard-size range that is bigger than the stove in her former kitchen in a public housing tower. She loves the lazy susan that holds her condiments.

What's her favorite feature?

"Everything, everything, e-very-THING, do you hear me?" the 72-year-old bubbled. "It's just beautiful. It's just lovely. This is really outstanding."

To find out more: An open house is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 13 Call 614-0414.